Iraq - Page 5

Iraq’s Ministry of Health announced Saturday that the country was experiencing “a dangerous rise in viral hemorrhagic fever (VHF) cases,” with the ministry recording 90 infections and 18 deaths from the disease in recent days, India’s Zee News reported on Sunday.

Twenty years after the United States invested blood and treasure in liberating Iraq from the rule of Saddam Hussein, China is attempting to lock up control of Iraq’s oilfields. The Western intervention in Iraq was denounced by critics as a “war for oil,” but in the end, the great authoritarian menace of the 21st Century is close to taking control of Iraq’s energy resources.

U.S. military forces stationed at Al-Harir Air Base in northern Iraq’s Kurdistan Region “mistakenly” fired on at least 11 civilian homes and one civilian car on Monday night in the nearby town of Shaqlawa, the Kurdish news website Rudaw reported.

Turkish forces operating in Syria reportedly shelled two villages on Sunday, coming perilously close to positions held by Russian troops. Turkey is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which is currently in a state of highly elevated tensions with Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.

The Iraqi government has completed a wall “a dozen kilometers long and 3.5 meters high” along the Syrian border in Nineveh province to keep Islamic State jihadis at bay. Iraq plans to expand the wall to cover more of its 600-kilometer border with Syria.

BEIRUT (AP) – Layal Aswad was already exhausted by Lebanon’s devastating two-year economic collapse. Now, as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sends food and energy prices soaring even further, she finds herself struggling to put food on the table for her family of four.

(AP) — British lawmaker Sir David Amess was “assassinated” while meeting constituents last year by a “fanatical, radicalised Islamist terrorist,” a court heard Monday as the accused killer went on trial.

The cargo ship Al Salmi 6 sank in the Persian Gulf Thursday, and according to reports one of the thirty crew members remains unaccounted for.

Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN) said Wednesday on MSNBC’s “The ReidOut” that she hoped the “compassion and generosity” that Ukrainians were offered translated to policy changes to accommodate other refugees from places, including Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.

Denis Pushilin, the leader of the Russia-backed Ukrainian separatist “Donetsk People’s Republic,” warned supporters of Kurdish independence not to rely on support from America or the West because “they won’t respect their promises,” unlike, he claimed, Russia.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) of Iran on Sunday formally took responsibility for the missile attack on Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s Kurdistan Region. The IRGC is the theocratically-controlled wing of the Iranian military and has been designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. government.

Following Iran claiming responsibility for a missile barrage that struck early Sunday near a sprawling U.S. consulate complex in the northern Iraqi city of Erbil, Republicans called for an end to nuclear talks with the Islamic Republic.

A dozen missiles were fired Sunday at the U.S. consulate in Erbil, Iraqi security officials said. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards has now claimed responsibility for the attack which it said targeted “secret Israeli bases” in the northern Iraqi city.

All the foes of Iran should tremble on the battlefield because the Islamic Republic has the upper hand against all its enemies, Major General Hossein Salami, commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC), warned Friday.

BAGHDAD — As many as 12 missiles struck near a sprawling U.S. consulate complex in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil on Sunday, in what a U.S. defense official and an Iraqi official said was a strike launched from neighboring Iran.

Former prime minister Tony Blair has said in an interview that he thought his invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were the “right thing” to do at the time.

According to admissions made by its CEO, telecommunications giant Ericsson may have made payments to ISIS and other terror organizations in order to access certain transport routes in Iraq. CEO Borje Ekholm admitted that “unusual expenses” included “transport routes have been purchased through areas that have been controlled by terrorist organizations, including ISIS.”

A program created by former President George W. Bush with the help of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) helped blow open the door for widespread fraud among Iraqi nationals in the United States refugee system. 

A group of migrants are to fly back to their native countries after accepting €1,000 (£842/$1,141) from the Lithuanian govt to go home. 

Six rockets hit Baghdad International Airport on Friday in an assault that damaged runways and one civilian plane. The U.S. blamed hostile Iran-linked terrorist militias for the attack.

Several suspects in murder cases in a Swedish county have fled to Iraq to avoid arrest and possible prosecution.  

The Liverpool taxi bomber who blew himself up after being locked in a taxi by the driver, had his asylum rejected in 2015 – six years before his attack was foiled.

Michael Gove became trapped in a lift shortly after praising Iraq War architect Tony Blair as an “outstanding” man deserving of a knighthood.

A million people are calling for a top knighthood for former UK PM, anti-Brexit campaigner, and warmonger Tony Blair to be cancelled.

A viral petition to strip former Labour prime minister and Iraq War architect Tony Blair of his knighthood is closing in on one million signatures, and shows no signs of slowing down. 

The Lithuanian government has paid 98 illegal migrants €1,000 to board a flight to the Iraqi capital of Baghdad.

“Students” belonging to a paramilitary wing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, published a letter this weekend lamenting that Iran had not issued a “proportionate” response to the elimination of top terrorist Qasem Soleimani two years ago.

Former Labour leader and prime minister Tony Blair has been dubbed a Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter in the New Year Honours Lists.

Several residents of Al-Hamdaniya, an Iraqi Christian town, dressed up as Santa Claus to stage an uplifting Christmas parade for local children on Sunday roughly seven years after the community was invaded by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported Monday.

Jihadi bride Tareena Shakil, free after serving less than half of her short jail sentence, says she “regrets” joining the Islamic State.

President Joe Biden awarded three soldiers the Medal of Honor during a ceremony at the White House on Thursday.

The White House announced Friday that three soldiers will be awarded the Medal of Honor, including one whose family had been fighting to see him recognized for 15 years.

EU foreign ministers are expected Monday to decide to expand sanctions against Belarus to include airlines, travel agents and individuals.

The Iraqi Embassy in Minsk announced on Thursday it will organize an evacuation flight for Iraqi citizens “wishing to return” home from Belarus amid a migration crisis.

Belarus is training and arming Afghan and Iraqi fighters to launch “terrorist” attacks against Europe, a one-time senior Belarussian politician now living in exile has claimed.

Pope Francis sent a telegram to Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi Tuesday to assure him of his prayers after Sunday’s assassination attempt.